Ethiopia: The Nation’s Top Taxman Detained on Corruption Charges

Awramba Times (Addis Ababa) – The Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission, in coordination with the national security agency, has arrested 16 people, including high-ranking government officials on allegations of corruption.

Melaku Fenta, Director General of the Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority (ERCA), who has retained his position since 2008 at the inception of ERCA is the most prominent name on the list. Gebrewahid Woldegiorgis, deputy director of ERCA is the second name listed by the state media. The names of the other 14 detainees have not been released.

Melaku Fantaye and mayor Kuma Demeksa

Melaku Fanta, who is one of the 180 EPRDF Council members was elected to the out-going Council of Addis Ababa city Administration in 2008 as a candidate of ANDM/EPRDF. Previously, Melaku Fenta served in the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, then in the Regional Affairs Department of the Prime Minister Office at different levels and also at the then Ministry of Revenue.

Melaku will be the second Cabinet member to be sacked since the passing of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi last August. It is to be recalled Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegne recently called the public to provide him tips on corrupted officials.

30 Responses

Dawit, good job honestly. Wow, this is good news. I hope PM HD will clean they system. I applaud the prime minister PM HD. This is a good start for EPRDF to clean its house. This is really very bad to the ruling party. Such high office person engaged in corruption is just not acceptable. Shame on him and others. They must not sack them.They face the law and serve their terms. Otherwise,sacking them is good for them. They have enough money already accumulated.

@Gezaee,
If the Anti corruption agency has any power, they should also take into custody all the military people, the effort business group leaders, every weyanay te egress because all those people were involved in bribing, in using force(military and political) to loot gold, platinum, import goods without paying the due customs tax-AND THE MOST CORRUPTED GROUP OF PEOPLE ARE TIGRAWAYAS!!! But they arrest those whom they want to use as a scapegoat for their filthy corrupt behavior! And the like of Dawit the AWramba likes this kind of story-they quote the weyane supporters the like of Daniel Birhane, and addis fortune . Any ways i am glad that Melaku Fenta(ye Aya Fente leje) got what he deserves-he was sucking the people of Amhara working with their eternal enemy -Weyane Tigray! Gosh bilenal! By the way-Dawit why did not you mention the weyane stooge in custums authority -Gebrewahad the weyane tigraway-i think that guy set Melaku up!! trust me the tigraway will be released while hodo melaku get sentenced!

Trust me, no one will hide from justice; if they hide they will be held at some stage; Those who are king today are dead tomorrow; those who has rotten hands will never go free. Justice and truth will chase even late. Whether they are woyane or not it does not matter. History shows any gain bargained through corruption ends in disgrace; Any gain without hardwork is not worthy. Those who think today they are untouchable will come a day for them to surrender. Deception can only serve for temporary but does not last long. Deceit is deceit, and if we do not see the above sees everything and he never let anyone go free unpunished for any injustice done.

How about all woyanes and its supporter check in themselves into Kality prison? Have they not been corrupting the entire country for 22yrs now? These tugs must be rounded up and sent to Kality prison so ethiopia can breath freely once again! Down with woyane !

good observation man, i think they did this for political game. otherwise why wouldn’t they arrest AZEB MESFIN.
anyway this guys should serve jail time. however, if they set set them free after one month then its gonna be quationable.

So, Meles has escaped the gallows of woyane then! he was the gangs leader and his wife is leading the corrupt gang; hope The Ethipian people demand justice to those looters like Azieb Gola, Mesfen sium and the farty bull shit dady leba sebhat nega!!!

How about the former weyane TOP TAX MAN-Minamin Belay-he now resides in the state after taking all the looted bonanza to foreign banks-the weyanes let him go-that is how it works in the weyane camp! BIG SHAME!

These are small criminals compared to the other big sharks in the EPRDF. This is just to show the public that EPRDF is tackling corruption but the real corruption is being done by the military generals but no one will come after them because that would be tantamount to bringing the whole system down.

I agree with you Miriam. If you want to tackle the real corruption problem in Ethiopia you have to go after the military generals and commanders, Effort, and Al Amoudi. This is where the real musina is at. Everything else is smoke and mirrors to cover up the real deal. Actually when EPRDF says it has taken anti-corruption measures it is more that likely aimed at the small criminals taking small bites out of the gains made by the big criminals at the 3 mentioned sharks.

Give me a break. Everyone in Woyane circle is corrupt and should be detained if there is a s called “Federal Ethics and Anti-corruption Commission”. Stop reporting stuff like this trying to legitimize the Ethiopian government system. 90 Million Ethiopians need justice and that will be served when Woyane and Co’s disappear once for all from the face of earth.

The woyane cardhouse is crumbling down!
This is just a pretension and diversion of the attention of
Ethiopians. To divert the attention from the funny and shameful
election results, to suppress the opposition about the agony of amharas etc. The weyane system is eating his own tail!

Where is the over 20 billions an accounted money borrowed in the name of Ethiopia? This arrest demonstrates nothing other than an attempt to find a straw-man for the endemic problems amongst the elite of the ruling part. I do not see the merits of this selective prosecution of people probably those who might not paid their share to EFFORT. Anyway the mass upheaval is coming to all these coward Ethiopian chokers. Their day is in number.

This is the action of a responsible Government. Everybody is accountable, even people on power. I’m so proud of our constitution.
I’m sorry this guy did this shameful thing, but its good now that he is detained, it will give a lesson to other people on power. People have to realize Ethiopia is not like the Diaspora Corrupt money grabing circle of whores.
Ethiopia is a country led by a constitution set by the people, so there is no way around the people’s money. This action should continue on people who practice corruption, as they are NEKERSA to our development.
God bless our Constitution! !

Mahlet,
You remind me of the women Nazi sympathizers. your constitution is nothing but a TPLF RAG. by the way I am looking that ICC is preparing rooms for TPLF leaders… the demise of this Nazi oriented organization is near. the case against tplf the culprits of Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia is on the way!

@Endegena …… yes for you guys our constitution is TPLF rag, but for the mass of the Ethiopian people its our protection, our pride, our Order and peace. I’m sure if I ask you, you wouldn’t know a single phrase from our constitution. Yet you dare to insult it.
And as for the Rooms you mentioned, may be they are being built for the Money Grabing Whores like Lemagne Beyene. Don’t fool yourself TPLF leaders aren’t going anywhere, we would die protecting them before anyone could touch them. Zim bleh Jil athun.
Anyways Ethiopia Wede Fit!!! No looking back.

This is a good gesture by a regime that is facing the thinnest public support, both internally and externally, and may be, may be a step in the right direction to win the heart of Ethiopians. But there is still a long way to go. Big fish like Former First Lady, Azeb, and other politically correct EPRDF officials and the mighty TPLF generals must follow suit. The Prime Minister must come to the fore too and tell the Ethiopian public that he was clean of any complicity to the untold crimes of the regime he inherited from colonel Zenawi. For Ethiopians in the Diaspora, we need to come together and support the regime in its pursuit of those implicated in milking Ethiopians out of their scarce resources and do everything we can to make sure that anyone who might have looted public coffers was punished to the fullest extent of the law. We may help the regime in empowering the often toothless Anti Corruption Commission and provide resources to help train capable man power to help prosecute corrupt officials at any level of the government. We still need to press the Hailemariam regime to free political prisoners and scrap the fully flawed anti terrorism legislation, put in place by dead TPLF tyrant Colonel Zenawi to punish dissent and legitimate political resistance to his repressive rule. Corruption remains the biggest culprit to Ethiopia’s many ills and, in my view, going every possible mile to make sure that those who think it is just a way of life are apprehended and punished is an idea whose time has come.

Let us not be fast for judgement. Let us wait and see. We have not heard the other side of the story from the detained. Let us make sure it is not politically motivated. After all most of the people arrested are Amharas and Siye’s brother. How do we know it has no political agenda behind? If it is corruption there is open corruption in effort, an organization that never was audited for the last 20 years.

@ Dan you are so stupide
What wrong with w/o Azerb? Don’t forgat what you say before our pm meles deid you say he ave a big house in California,Ohio,Paris’s, London now I have a qution to you wher are they all this house mad men.like you racists you have a righte to say any thing.
But we love w/o Azerb mesfine

@Ali-“we love Azeb golaa” who are you ‘we’? enante tigrewoch wededuwat-enja gin kimalam en aniwedem-ye leba kuncho wededulen? min yemeluk weshekata nehe? she is the mother of corruption-their looting machine is effort-plus the military Generals, and the tigre business people have benefited a lot through illegal business meanses! so take yanten kunasam aziten wed shintbet!

Azeb mesfin is our heroine who fought like a man to free us from the brutal Derg! Disrespecting women in general is unacceptable in the ethics of the Ethiopian culture! This shows that some individuals have lost their mind beyond repair ! It is So sad that some individuals have list their natural being & couldn’t discuss on principles , but unreasonable hate politics!

why this is a big news? The government has been arresting and prosecuting the corrupted individuals since long time a go. There were hundreds of people with different level of federal and regional government position who had been accountable for their corruption including the higher level officials,the ex-deputy prime minster Tamirat Layne,ex-defense minster Siye Abrha and ex president of oromia region junedi sado are few of them.

Please don’t get biased by this news. Melaku might have been a victim of a very complicated conspiracy planned by the government. I know him personally. He is a person of high character who has been very dedicated and hardworking to bring about changes he was engaged in. His great achievement in helping to develop the Afar Region and later setting up and running the Tax Revenue Administration office are a few to mention.. The Revenue office he is running is a cash cow for the country and they had to replace him with one of their own from Tigray… That is how they accuse and eliminate someone if they think he is on their way preventing them from stealing more. They chew him like a sugar cane sucking the juicy sweet part and throwing him away the same way they do for the remain. I know it is going to be a difficult road until he clears his name and may God be with him and his family in this difficult time?

If you follow the charges of the persecution today,the number one charge reads- he conspired with the accused balehabits to harm other investors. It sounds like he has been obstacle for some illegal investors.

funny this guy doesnt done anything bad but u make him bad inorder to hide ur own mess u tplfs are really idiots …noone belive u such a made up stories .what about zenawi who stolen from ethiopian ppl and died he is the one who is the king of the mafias …..why u make him sick u gave melaku a poison or what u crazy ppl .